Craig Jones sky-rocketed to the jiu-jitsu world's attention after submitted Leandro Lo and Murilo Santana in spectacular fashion at ADCC  2017. 

Since then, the Aussie native has gone on a global seminar tour and competed in a variety of professional organizations like Submission Underground, Kasai Pro, and Quintet. We caught up with Australia's deadliest grappler ahead of his next performance June 23 at BOA Super 8: The 4th Edition.  

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You've been hyperactive in both competition and teaching seminars around the world– how’s that all going?

Yeah, things have been crazy busy lately, I think for 2018 alone I'm over 50 seminars deep. Obviously, that has made training challenging in terms of having consistent people to roll with, but it has also been a blessing in that I've been exposed to a whole bunch of different grapplers in the process. 

BOA Super 8 is in your backyard – it must be great to see professional jiu-jitsu growing at home.  Is this a sign of bigger things to come?

It is amazing to finally have something this big at home! Finally, everyone else gets to suffer the curse of jetlag I'm always facing. BOA was around a few years back and hosted some events that were very popular, they were mostly gi events. Sy the promoter has seen the explosion of no-gi, big money events, over the last couple years and I believe was inspired to bring the event back. 

Us Aussies are very lucky to have him throwing money at the sport locally and giving a lot of guys a taste at professional grappling. Also working with FloGrappling means that these guys will have the opportunity to showcase their talents to the world.

Who are you looking forward to facing this weekend? What unique challenges do they pose?

Being an Australian – meaning I don't know how to wrestle – leads to believe that DJ Jackson will the be the toughest matchup. Given that it is ADCC rules, which generally favour the wrestler, makes this match particularly challenging. Some variables do exist though, such as facing him in a qualifying round will allow me the guard pull vs facing him in the final in which I will be immediately penalized for that pull.

When it comes to rulesets, you’ve seen success in a variety of promotions.  How do you adapt your training for something like BOA Super 8, which uses ADCC rules?  

The ADCC rules to me are the perfect rules. That is because it is a rule set where sub only and points fighters both have an opportunity to win. ADCC itself attracts grapplers from each of their preferred rule sets which is what makes it special. 

Craig Jones vs Leandro Lo – 2017 ADCC

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Although I compete in many sub-only events, I prefer points to overtime: I like the narrative it creates in the match where one person is down trying to make a comeback and the other is up trying to hang onto their lead. This leads to people taking risks and that risk leads to crazy upsets and submissions. It also rewards risk-taking from weak positions, meaning you have to escape side control or mount to win, I find in sub only a guard pass doesn't mean much because the guy defending won't take a risk and it is tough to submit someone that isn't doing anything.

If you take first place, what do you plan to do with the $20,000?

I will spend that 20k taking the guys from the tournament out for some beers. Hopefully, show them a good time in Melbourne.

Can you tell me a bit about Mikael Yahaya a bit? He’s got a tough match against rising talent Thalison Soares.

Mikael is a rooster/light featherweight brown belt competitor from our gym. He's been competing many years but this past 12 months he's improved a lot and is getting some attention for his matches. He's very athletic and always trying crazy stuff in his matches like flying submissions or big slams. He's predominantly a no-gi guy these days but I think his style will give Thalison some problems.

Are there any other matches on the undercard that you're particularly excited about?

No one match I'm particularly excited for, but Sy has managed to gather up all our best guys nationwide so we will be seeing a lot of exciting matches. Some that will weigh heavy on who Australians consider the best guys in the country.